1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to systems and methods for managing sessions with both proprietary and non-proprietary systems, and more particularly, for session management with terminal emulation systems, Internet network systems, UNIX-based legacy systems, and telephony control systems.
2. Background of the Invention
Many companies provide telephone-based customer service departments, or teleservices centers, to provide customer service to patrons. Teleservice centers are typically used to process account inquiries for existing customers, to make reservations for various accommodations and services, to accept orders for products or services from new or existing customers, provide technical support, and the like. The typical teleservice center includes an automatic call distributor (ACD) which routes customer calls to customer service agents, a central computer system which stores customer and corporate information, and personal computers, terminals, or workstations at each agent's station. An agent uses the computer to access customer account data, company information, and other data to assist the customer. The agent uses the computer or a telephone set to interact with the ACD to answer, hold, transfer and otherwise handle incoming and outgoing customer telephone calls.
In many teleservice centers, the agents must often access many different, unrelated computer systems and sources of information to assist the customer. For example, in a hotel chain with many hotel properties, a teleservice center agent may need to access customer account data on a legacy computer system, access different computer systems for each hotel property to check for available rooms and rates, and access yet another computer system with a property database to review property descriptions, amenities and the like. In addition, with the recent growth of the Internet and the World Wide Web as publishing and information mechanisms, it may be useful for the agent to access additional information on a company intranet or other Internet sites. Each of these different computer systems and data sources is likely to have completely separate user interfaces, unrelated execution environments, data formats, and communications protocols. Existing legacy systems may be operating on proprietary mainframe computers, and are typically accessed through terminal emulation sessions using proprietary communications protocols. Corporate databases may operate on separate computers running UNIX-based client-server applications. Internet and intranet systems may be based on a third system architecture, such as Intel-based computers running Microsoft Corp.'s Windows95 operating system, using HTTP communication protocols over TCP/IP connections. The ACD itself may have a separate telephony application, used to control it from the agent's computer terminal. Each of the various systems and sources operate independently, requiring separate start up, login, and operational procedures.
FIG. 1 illustrates a screen capture from one conventional teleservices environment. As can be seen, there are multiple, different windows, managed by a number of separate applications. Six of the windows (the TR, LMS, and CMS titled windows) are each for a different terminal emulation session for a different host system. One window (entitled Netscape) is for viewing HTML data on a corporate intranet; the final window (entitled Inbox) is for an email application. To answer a telephone call the agent must physically use the telephone set to connect to the ACD, or must toggle into a separate telephony application on their computer (not shown). Once the telephone call is answered, the agent must toggle into various databases and other computer systems to access information and services for the customer. To access each of the different applications and systems, the agent must toggle repeatedly between the many windows, a slow, time-consuming and sometimes error prone process. Thus, the operating environment of the conventional teleservices workstation can be extremely complex, and difficult to use.
This complex environment has a number of undesirable effects. First, customer service is substantially impaired in this environment. While the agent toggles between different application windows and inputs search requests into different databases, the customer must wait on the telephone line. This process increases the time necessary to service the customer, and decreases the customer's satisfaction.
Second, because the various applications that access the underlying computer systems operate independently, they typically do not share data formats, and there are typically little or no automated mechanisms for transferring data between systems and applications. Thus, the agent may have to repeatedly enter a customer's name, address, account number, birthdate, or the like, from one application into another application in order to obtain reservation, account status, or other information. Again, the customer must wait on the telephone line while the agent performs these operations. The lack of integration of these multiple systems thereby increases the time necessary to service customer calls, reduces the overall number of customer calls that can be processed in a given time period, and reduces customer satisfaction.
Third, the complexity and lack of integration increases the training time and cost for agents. The agent must be trained in the use of each individual system, including how to log into the system, perform all of the operations and functions in each system, and how to handle problems that may arise. Because of the lack of integration, each system and its accessing application is likely to have its own set of operations and procedures.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a teleservices system and workstation configuration that enables an integrated presentation of information from multiple, concurrent systems, such as terminal emulation sessions with mainframe or other host type computer systems, hypertext systems based on Internet protocols, and telephony control systems.